CFP: The Star and Celebrity Confessional
Special Themed Issue: Social Semiotics
Guest Editor: Sean Redmond
Social Semiotics (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10350330.asp) is
soliciting papers for a special themed issue on the star and
celebrityconfessional. The confessional, taken to be any moment in which a
star, celebrity, or fan engages in revelatory acts, has become one of the
dominant ways in which fame is circulated and consumed.
The celebrity confessional involves 'the combination of reflexivity about
the business of being a celebrity, emotional interiority and self
criticism',and it is where the fan is 'invited to feel with their feelings'
(Littler, 2004: 13/18). Through the confessional text (played out in the
biopic, documentary, talk-show interview, self-reflexive song lyric, star
blog, and celebrity magazine interview), the celebrity seemingly attempts
to
speak openly and honestly about where they have come from. Such a
confession(s) would include their humble beginnings; the troubles,
hardships and corruption they may have faced along their journey to fame;
who they
really are underneath the fame gown; and how alike they are to the
everyday people who watch their films, buy their records, go to their
concerts, and watch their soccer or tennis matches. Similarly, the
fan/consumer who
confesses their desire for, and identification with, the star or
celebrity, on line, in diaries, reveal a para-social relationship that is
in part devotional, obsessional, but also potentially intimate and fully
lived. It is one of the mechanisms 'through which relationships, identity,
and social and cultural norms are debated, evaluated, modified and shared'
(Turner, 2004:24).
In this Special Edition of the journal Social Semiotics, the different
manifestations, meanings, and processes of the star and celebrity
confessional will be explored. Potential themes/texts/contexts/case
studies could include:
The confessional interview
The confessional song
Authenticity and artifice as modes of confessional expression
Confession as myth
The race/sex/sexuality/class of the confession
Confession as intimacy
Fan confessionals
Confession as transgression and empowerment
Confession as a form of group belonging
Religious deification and the confession
Confession as therapy
The commodity confessional text
The confessional star or celebrity
Confession as damage
Confession as obsession
The confessional talk of fame
Social Semiotics is committed to inter and cross-disciplinary
approachesthat are politically and historically engaged, and on publishing
papers that reveal something profound about the nature of everyday life.
Please send your abstract (500-750 words in length), or completed essay
(5,000-7,000 words, Harvard style of referencing), plus a brief biographic
statement, as e-mail attachments (in Word ) to the editor:
Sean Redmond
[log in to unmask]
Senior Lecturer in Film Studies,
Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington,
New Zealand
Deadline for abstract submission: February 1st 2007
If your abstract is chosen for final consideration, you will have until
October 31st (2007) to complete the first draft. Completed Essays
submitted by the February deadline will have a similar period of time for
any re-drafting that needs to be done.
Queries or questions to [log in to unmask]
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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.ScreenSite.org